CINCINNATI (AP) – A 3-year-old boy killed by a gunshot had been playing with a pistol he found in his mother’s purse in their home near Cincinnati, police said Friday.
In audio tape of a 911 call released by police, a woman identifying herself as the mother of Marques Green said she carried the gun in her purse, and had set her purse down after getting home.
“My son just shot himself and I’m not getting a pulse,” screamed the woman, who gave her name as Elizabeth Green in the call Thursday afternoon. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God, I’m not getting a pulse … I don’t think he’s alive!”
Sgt. Ed Buns said Hamilton police were working with the Butler County prosecutor’s office to decide whether anyone should be charged in the case. It’s the second apparently accidental gunshot death of a young person this month in the city of 62,000 people north of Cincinnati.
Police said the boy was wounded in the chest and pronounced dead at a hospital shortly afterward.
The woman told the 911 dispatcher: “His eyes are open, but he’s out.”
Police didn’t release information about the gun, but TV footage showed a detective carrying a handgun out of the residence on Thursday.
A neighbor said she heard a woman screaming Thursday and ran to her balcony to see what was happening.
“She was holding her son and he was lifeless, just completely lifeless,” Amanda Reed, who lives across the street, told WLWT-TV.
Earlier Thursday, a 16-year-old boy was arraigned in juvenile court on a charge of reckless homicide after the June 3 shooting of a 14-year-old Hamilton boy.
Investigators have said they believe the boys were playing with a gun when it discharged, striking Gabriel Mejia in the head. He died last week.